Confused over amp wattage

**Beemer** · 10-03-2012, 09:20 AM

My amp is a Peavey Ecoustic 20 (20W solid state) two channel, clean, with bass/treble tone controls.

With my 5th Ave Kingpin (P-90) I can turn the volume full up in my lounge and there is no distortion which is what I want and what I thought all Jazz guitarists would want.

However as a newbie here I read that many of you want to use low wattage, e.g 2W - 5W amps valve amps. I presume that this is to allow you to overdrive the valve output stage to produce distortion? I only play at home.

Perhaps I'm being naive when using the words Jazz guitarists (as distinct from Blues) as the term may include Jazz styles that I am not aware of.

I was beginning to think that buying my amp was a mistake and that I should have saved up for a valve combo?

Comments welcome.

Ian

**jorgemg1984** · 10-03-2012, 09:35 AM

Some guys like to have a small grit in their sound even for jazz... you can hear it on some Wes recordings and lots of Van Gelder recoridngs for Blue Note. It's nor dirty... it's clean with a small touch of OD.

Not me, I want it 100% clean.

**Klatu** · 10-03-2012, 09:38 AM

Most straight ahead archtop players that I know want their amps to stay as clean as possible in order to accurately replicate the sound of the guitar. However, there are others who play solidbodies or semi-hollows that want the overdriven sound that is often heard in contemporary jazz. This overdriven sound is often present in the work of Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jonathan Kreisberg, and Ben Monder among others.

I choose to play the cleanest amps possible. If I want to go crazy for a little while, I will use an overdrive pedal into a solidbody guitar. This usually manages to entertain me for around 20 minutes before I'm back to my trusty jazz box and clean amp sound.

**jorgemg1984** · 10-03-2012, 09:41 AM

Klatu - the three examples you mentioned use 100% clean sounds for their bases and od / dist pedals when they want. They play most of the time clean... Kreisberg even uses an archtop and Kurt too from time to time.

I think what people look on 2 watt amps is that small grit sound from the 60s... not the same as having a clean platform and an od pedal (but I might be wrong). I got that from my Blues Jr at a gigs volume and that's why I sold it... It's a clean sound on the verge of starting to od.

**Klatu** · 10-03-2012, 09:48 AM

I know these guys use OD pedals, but some guys are stubborn and insist that their overdrive come from their amp's power tubes. However, plug an archtop into a 2 watt amp, turn up the volume, and prepare yourself for a symphony of pull-my-finger fart noise.

**jorgemg1984** · 10-03-2012, 09:56 AM

That's what I am not sure, I don't think the desired effect is the same as using an od pedal into a clean platform but let's see what the guys who use them say

**Darwin_Hoel** · 10-03-2012, 10:03 AM

If your amp gives you the sound you want and the one that you hear in your head then don't worry about it. Jazz guitar tone comes in many flavors. Pick yours and enjoy it!

**Beemer** · 10-03-2012, 10:07 AM

Thanks guys for the replies. I like the Joe Pass sound. I have an Alesis Nanoverb processor and have experimented using it's reverb with the P-90 and Peavey amp. Although 16-bit, I think it is reducing the quality of the original sound.

When you all say "clean" are you saying that you prefer not to use reverb?

Ian

**jorgemg1984** · 10-03-2012, 10:08 AM

I use reverb and delay a lot. Clean is no grit at all to me...

**Doctor Jeff** · 10-03-2012, 10:10 AM

Well somebody more knowledgeable than me about amp design can chime in here, but comparing solid state and tube amp wattages is like comparing apples and oranges. Tube amps always produce more sound for the watt rating.

I had an Ibanez acoustic amp (20W) which like yours produces a very clean sound. It also had a tweeter, I believe, which is important for reproducing treble sounds of acoustic instruments or voices.

IMO the treble range is not helpful for typically amplified electric guitars--magnetic, wound coils, etc. It is good for piezo-type pickups, so if you amplified your Kingpin that way it would have a very nice acoustic sound. Most jazz players do not want that sound unless they are going for a hot jazz/gypsy jazz type of thing.

While I found the Ibanez suitable for my jazz guitars (I have a Kingpin too), I was looking for a more tubey jazz sound and eventually sold it in favor of the Epiphone and a Fender SCXD.

I got a 5W Epi Valve Jr. which is a really nice little amp that has a pleasant tube warmth and doesn't distort much until you dial it above 12 o'clock. It is also really LOUD and actually louder than the 20W Ibanez.

If you are playing acoustic instruments with piezo pickups or mic'd or you sing, then you would definitely want to keep the acoustic amp for that purpose.

One other thought--if you want that tubey sound through a clean amp you could get a Fender pedal like their Deluxe Reverb. It is voiced to sound like their tube amps with reverb and vibrato and has an overdrive function as well. Cheaper than a new amp and should add a lot of volume to your current amp...

**Darwin_Hoel** · 10-03-2012, 10:13 AM

No distortion or OD would be called clean, no reverb would be called dry.

**FrankyNoTone** · 10-03-2012, 12:04 PM

Tube amps compress and soft clip so they can deliver a higher average loudness without unpleasant artifacts (i.e. noticeable overdrive distortion) than solid state amps that do not compress and hard clip. Its similar to the signal processing that is done on recent pop recordings to make them sound louder in cars/mp3 players and is the tool used in the "loudness wars".

And the old time players had no choice with a slightly overdriven sound simply because their equipment couldn't deliver enough clean headroom at performance levels. It would be interesting to know what those artists would have chosen had they access to modern affordable and compact 1000+ watt clean amps. It might have altered the established "jazz tone".

Also even at "clean levels", tube amps have orders of magnitude higher harmonic distortion than solid state amps but as long as its mostly even order distortion then it complements the timbre of guitars. So I'd say that a measured dose of a compressor and tube emulator to add some harmonic content would be good for solid state amp users.

**SamBooka** · 10-03-2012, 12:18 PM

watts is watts.. speakers cant tell if they are being driven by tubes, transistors or donkeys with sombreros

For actual measurable volume in dBs speaker efficiency makes a huge difference. No one seems to want to talk about that but there is enough variation between different makes and models that it shouldnt be taboo any longer.

Also people underestimage the power of wattage (ehehe). Take fender champ with an 8 in speaker... nice! Take the same amp and run it through a 4x12 closed back. Nice.. and I can practice with a drummer now.

In theory (i havent measured this part ) if you double the output power to a speaker load within the working range of the speaker (i.e. it has less than a certain amount of distortion) you will increase the SPL by 3dB. Owning many many amps under 20 watts , a good chunk of 45 watters and a 66 Fender showman at 85W I would say that my experience is in line with that rule.

To the OP... my personal experience is 90% fender tube amps. None of them sound great with the volume below 3 (I have no master volume fenders and havent had one in 20 years so my memory is rusty). So, my vibrochamp sounds nice with the volume at 5 and I dont disturb the neighbours. My deluxe rev sounds nice at 5 and I DO disturb the neighbours. My Super Reverb sounds nice at 5 and I disturb the neighbourhood (exagerating.. but you get the idea). To get the SR at a reasonable volume I have to run it a hair under 2. At that point I loose a considerable amount of high end).

Sorry for the longwinded post.. I busted the 3 small paragraph rule. Guilty of what my sig says.

**mr. beaumont** · 10-03-2012, 12:33 PM

Likely, a 5 watt tube amp is as loud as that 20 watt Peavey. I'm no electrical engineer, but it seems tube amps are more efficient with what they do with their power...to a point, of course...because eventually, almost all distort.

I'm not a small amp guy, even for home practice. Personally, I don't even need a tube amp for what I do, though I still own a SF Princeton which sounds good, but it's certainly not loud enough to gig with.

Give me a compact, high powered, solid state amp any day.

**PTChristopher** · 10-03-2012, 12:36 PM

>>> my personal experience is 90% fender tube amps. None of them sound great with the volume below 3

Although the component values are different, the same bypass (or bleed) circuit that can tweak the performance of a guitar volume control, works great on a tube amp front end volume.

As drew mentions, my experience is that speaker efficiency is a major factor in actual volume.

Chris

**jorgemg1984** · 10-03-2012, 12:40 PM

And amp placement / cabinet design...

**Spook410** · 10-03-2012, 01:10 PM

A watt is a watt. The amount of sound pressure (SPL) it produces is greatly influenced by the resistance (4 ohm, 8 ohm, 16 ohm) of the speaker and somewhat by the speaker design.

Perceived loudness and actual SPL are not the same thing. Compression comes into play. If you can put more content in the upper levels of the available volume range, it sounds louder. Also, if the bad things that happen when you exceed to the available volume range sound more musical, you get the impression you can go louder.

**Beemer** · 10-03-2012, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Likely, a 5 watt tube amp is as loud as that 20 watt Peavey. I'm no electrical engineer, but it seems tube amps are more efficient with what they do with their power...to a point, of course...because eventually, almost all distort.

I'm not a small amp guy, even for home practice. Personally, I don't even need a tube amp for what I do, though I still own a SF Princeton which sounds good, but it's certainly not loud enough to gig with.

Give me a compact, high powered, solid state amp any day.

Well I also own a Peavey KB300 amp which is 150W r.m.s into 4ohm. 30Hz-30kHz, less than 0.2% harmonic distortion feeding a 15" Black Widow speaker and titanium horn. Is that loud enough for you

Ian

**Source** · 10-03-2012, 01:35 PM

First off, I don't think a lot of jazz players are looking for their amp to distort very much, if at all. The stereotype is always clean clean clean I thought.
Second, on to your question, watts have to do with power, dBs have to do with volume. Don't confuse the two, they have very little in common. Your SS amp likely won't distort even if it's dimed and, if it does, probably won't sound very good. If you're looking for a slight breakup, I'd look into getting a small tube amp.

**SamBooka** · 10-03-2012, 02:06 PM

Originally Posted by PTChristopher

>>> my personal experience is 90% fender tube amps. None of them sound great with the volume below 3

Although the component values are different, the same bypass (or bleed) circuit that can tweak the performance of a guitar volume control, works great on a tube amp front end volume.

Chris

Known as the bright cap that people love to remove from deluxe reverbs

**kawa** · 10-03-2012, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by Beemer

My amp is a Peavey Ecoustic 20 (20W solid state) two channel, clean, with bass/treble tone controls.

With my 5th Ave Kingpin (P-90) I can turn the volume full up in my lounge and there is no distortion which is what I want and what I thought all Jazz guitarists would want.

However as a newbie here I read that many of you want to use low wattage, e.g 2W - 5W amps valve amps. I presume that this is to allow you to overdrive the valve output stage to produce distortion? I only play at home.

Perhaps I'm being naive when using the words Jazz guitarists (as distinct from Blues) as the term may include Jazz styles that I am not aware of.

I was beginning to think that buying my amp was a mistake and that I should have saved up for a valve combo?

Comments welcome.

Ian

Peavey Ecoustic　Peavey :: Ecoustic E20 a acoustic amp like a PA system or a audio system.

Speaker is a dual cone for wide range, only good for acoustic guitars.

**Beemer** · 10-03-2012, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Likely, a 5 watt tube amp is as loud as that 20 watt Peavey. I'm no electrical engineer, but it seems tube amps are more efficient with what they do with their power...to a point, of course...because eventually, almost all distort.

I'm not a small amp guy, even for home practice. Personally, I don't even need a tube amp for what I do, though I still own a SF Princeton which sounds good, but it's certainly not loud enough to gig with.

Give me a compact, high powered, solid state amp any day.

My degree in electronics included valve and transistor amplifier technology. Both amp types will provide output volume within 1dB SPL provided neither is driven into distortion. In fact at maximum power (without distorting) the transistor amp will be louder as its output impedance is lower (hence nearer matching the speaker) than a valve amp output transformer impedance.

As was said by FrankyNoTone and Spook410 the "valve is louder" perception can be the result of most of the output power being used to output waveforms that are more distorted than a transistor design. In the UK as the volume of TV advertisements is limited by law the adverts now use modified waveforms to strip certain frequencies (compression) so that they can lift the volume of the remaining frequencies so that the volume is on the legal limit at all times.

Anyone really interested in the technical aspect of sound levels can read this:

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-levelchange.htm

Ian

**Beemer** · 10-03-2012, 02:35 PM

Originally Posted by kawa

Peavey Ecoustic　Peavey :: Ecoustic E20 a acoustic amp like a PA system or a audio system.

Speaker is a dual cone for wide range, only good for acoustic guitars.

Kawa,

Would you care to elaborate as to why you think dual-cone is "only good for acoustic guitars"?

Ian